The ILWU pioneered group health insurance, including preventive medical care,
vision and dental

insurance for workers and
their families, with little or no co-payment. And the ILWU won the first uniondental plan covering children.

ILWU Pension Plans

The ILWU moved with deliberate care before shaping its demands in the field
of pensions, deciding first

on certain
standards: pension benefits must be in addition to Social Security benefits;
they must beadequate for full retirement;
administration must be under joint trustees, with bargaining parties retainingjoint control over payments, eligibility and handling
of funds; the plan must be set up as a cost of industryoperation
without employee contributions; efficient administration must be assured; the
union mustmaintain continuing responsibility
for pensioners and their medical care.

The
ILWU took its first step in building the union’s health and welfare program
– the ILWU-PMAWelfare Plan – in 1949
during Longshore Division bargaining over wage when the employers agreed toimplement a disability insureance program. In 1950
the Plan was established, and the first comprehensivepackage
of medical, surgical, and hospital benefits went into effect.

A life insurance benefit was addedmid-year,
and in 1951 partial welfare coverage was extended to dependent family members,
with fulldependent coverage available in
1953.

The ILWU pioneered full hospital, medical, and
surgical benefitsfor pensioners in 1952. In
1951, and again in 1961, the union initiated an unprecedented health-testingprogram for its longshore members as part of the
larger concept of providing preventive health care.

Dental
care began 1954 with a pilot program for children. In recent years these
benefits have all beenexpanded, with
employers carrying the freight. The package now includes a comprehensive program
foralcohol and substance abuse, funded by the
employers and administered by the union.The
Warehouse Division has fought tirelessly to achieve and maintain similar
benefits and trusts, butwith mixed results.
Employers have been more successful in resisting or reducing welfare benefits as
partof their unending pressure to cut costs,
reduce the workforce, and weaken the union. That warehouselocals
have been able to retain major coverage and keep co-payments to a minimum is a
credit to theunited efforts of the
rank-and-file negotiating committees.

Community Housing

The ILWU became the first union on the West Coast to invest in affordable
housing for low-income

workers when it built
the St. Francis Square cooperative housing project in San Francisco with
ILWU-PMApension funds in 1963. As ILWU
Secretary-Treasurer Lou Goldblatt noted at the dedicationceremony,
the union’s interest went far beyond low-cost housing. "In addition, its
purpose was to build aconsumer-controlled,
non-profit development truly run by its inhabitants as a democratic community,
andto build a fully-integrated project which
would represent all races and groups in the community," he said.

Another San Francisco project was undertaken in 1984 when ground was broken
for Amancio Ergina

Village – again funded by
the ILWU-PMA Pension Trust. Similar projects for low-income workers andsenior
citizens have been organized and supported by Local 141 in Hawaii.Occupational
Health andSafety The union has made great
strides in improving safety regulation and enforcement in some of thenation’s
most hazardous industries and occupations.

Unfortunately,
these improvements often have comeabout after
too many workers have been maimed, killed, or poisoned because of unsafe
conditions orexposure to toxic materials. In
1981, for example, it took the death of two scrapyard workers, members ofLocal 26, to win proper safety measures in that
industry. And five longshoremen were killed duringcontainer
operations in 1985 before government and industry agencies paid attention to
container safetyrequirements long sought by
the union.In 1987 the union negotiated major
revisions in the Pacific Coast Maritime Safety Code (PCMSC) tocover
the new hazards posed by containerization, adopting most of the rules developed
by the longshorelocals in Southern California
after the 1985 fatalities. In 1996 negotiations the union again expanded thescope of the PCMSC, this time to include railroad
safety issuesthat confront longshore workers
at new on-dock and near-dock intermodal rail yards.